A daily struggle with depression and/or anxiety plagues nearly 1 in every 5 people you and I come in contact with each and every day. It could be your mother, your friend, a coworker, a spouse, your child, the person at the cash register at Wal-Mart, or any number of persons you come in contact with on a daily basis. The bottom line: depression is as real a sickness as cancer or heart disease and we need to see it as so.
Jesus has called you and I to love. To love God, and love others. How you love or don't love "someone" today could be the difference maker as to whether they feel hopeless or hopeful. I truly believe that our busyness, our haste, our noses stuck in our smart phones, and our cultures focus on "self" has led to the epidemic we are now witnessing where more people than ever before are on anti-depressants and find themselves sinking deeper in despair as they search for hope. Ultimately, hope can only be found in one place, in one person, that being our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christ doesn't promise us happiness, but He does promise us hope and even contentment (see Philippians 4:10-15) that goes well beyond this world.
The death of Robin Williams is nothing less than tragic. However, let's not allow it to be in vain; instead let it serve as a reminder of our need to love others. Our need to put aside self and genuinely love those we come in contact with everyday. Perhaps even someone you don't know. A friendly "hello", or "how are you?", or "how was your day?", or how about a listening ear that can go a long way to showing someone we genuinely care. Depression is real and there will be some that no matter what we do we cannot "save" them from the miry depths of this disease. However, we can try. We can love. That's what Jesus would do, and that's what I believe we should do as well.
1 Corinthians 13:13 - Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
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